A Social Democratic Future? Political and Institutional Hurdles in Scotland

The Nordic model has long been admired in Scotland, and has featured prominently in aspects of the Scottish independence referendum debate. This article explores the difficulties in instituting a similar system here, identifying two significant barriers: the institutional setting (the powers available to Scottish politicians) and the partisan nature of competition between the two parties that might be able to deliver upon such a commitment. It concludes that the prospects of moving towards a Nordic‐style social investment model are slight, given the political, institutional and attitudinal barriers in place.     

Fatal epiglottic abscess after radiotherapy for laryngeal carcinoma

ABSTRACT: Acute epiglottitis is a rare condition, especially in adults, largely owing to the widespread vaccination against Haemophilus influenzae. Traumatic epiglottitis as a result of thermal or caustic insults is documented. Epiglottic abscess formation is described as a sequela of epiglottitis in some cases. The development of epiglottic abscess from epiglottitis secondary to radiotherapy has previously been described in the literature; however, there are no reports of fatalities due to epiglottic abscess after radiotherapy. We present an unusual case of an adult sudden death due to epiglottic abscess formation subsequent to radiotherapy for laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.     

Rollen und Institutionen als symbolische Ordnung von Netzwerken

Roles and institutions lead to the reduction of uncertainty in communication, and to a particular pattering of social networks. Cultural patterns for actorhood, for social relationships, and for patterns of relationships are conceptualized as ??relational institutions?? that structure social networks as cultural models. Roles mediate between the structure of social networks and institutionalized cultural patterns: On the one hand, they can emerge in small-scale network contexts and crystallize as long as the network structure persists. On the other hand, communication draws on institutionalized models to reduce its own complexity and uncertainty. Thus, relational institutions imprint social networks through role categories. In order to elaborate on this relational conception of institutions and roles, the text combines arguments from social network research, from the normative and the interpretive role concept, from philosophical anthropology and neo-institutionalism with the general perspective of relational sociology.     

Globale Ungleichheit: Weltgesellschaftliche Perspektiven

A common claim made by world system theory and world society theory is that the observable differences in the world system or the world society are to be considered as consequences of the structure of the overall system. This claim is tested by considering the current research on global income inequality. One finding of this research is that the individual share in global income is predominantly determined by where an individual lives. While it is difficult for Luhmann’s theory of world society to account for this observation, from the point of view of world system theory this observation can be interpreted as a result of globally effective profit interests which exploit the political segmentation of the globe. Nevertheless, this interpretation also has to be questioned. On the one hand, there are strong indications that the economic development and the distribution of income are strongly determined by national factors that cannot easily be interpreted as consequences of global forces. On the other hand, world system theory has not succeeded in establishing the mechanisms by which structures of global exploitation operate. It is argued that these findings do not invalidate a world societal perspective on global inequality, but only invalidate the stronger claim that global structures are necessarily determined by global forces. Rather, national structures are still shaping global structures to a high degree.